Russian new car market grew in 2013 in monetary terms

Financial capacity of the largest market in the country in the Moscow region has declined, but others could grow by tens of percent - mainly due to the replacement of low-cost cars by more expensive models, experts say.

Capacity of the Russian automotive market in terms of value increased from 2.204 trillion to 2.242 trillion rubles (by 1,7%), calculated AUTOSTAT. “The growth occurred despite the serious decline of sales of new vehicles in 2013 - to 2.53 million cars (by 4.2% by 2012), or up to 2.78 million cars and LCV (by 5%).

Earlier, the company PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) evaluated the fall of the Russian market in 2013 by 5.5% in quantitative and 3% in monetary terms. According to the PwC in monetary terms the annual sales of passenger cars in Russia were $ 69 billion (2.195 trillion rubles), in quantitative terms - 2.61 million units.

The highest financial market capacity is in Moscow (447.0 billion rubles) and Moscow region (199.5 billion rubles), written in the report of AUTOSTAT. “Both markets decreased slightly compared to 2012 - by 0.4 and 2.6%. The third position in the ranking of regions is belonged to St. Petersburg (about 151.0 billion rubles), in the fourth place - the Republic of Tatarstan (84.5 billion rubles), both showed growth in sales of financial results.

Among the 25 largest regions, more than a half increased financial capacity of the markets in the last year. Among them the most growth is belonged to the market of Kaluga region - by 31.7%. The significant growth was shown by Bashkortostan (+21.9%) and Tatarstan (+10.5%) and Rostov region (+7.6%).

Each regional market has each reasons for the growth, says the head of analysts department of AUTOSTAT, Andrew Toptun. In Bashkortostan, sales of new cars rose by more than 15%, while the size of the market grew by 22%, which is explained by a reduction of the share in regional sales of budget brands (Lada and Chevrolet) and an increase of share of brands with higher average prices of sold cars (Toyota, Volkwagen, Kia). The situation was similar in the Kaluga region, but the pace of the replacement of low-cost brands by more expensive brands took more intense, he said.

In 2014, experts expect the continuation of reduction of the Russian car market in quantitative terms. According to PwC forecast sales will fall by 8% compared to 2013 up to 2.4 million units. Ministry of Industry gave several scenarios - pessimistic forecast: a decline of 6.5% to 2.72 million units, base - by 2.8% to 2.83 million units and optimistic - by 0.7% to 2.89 million units. AEB expects the new car market will be 2.73 million units. (-1.6%). The pessimistic forecast is 2,64 million, optimistic - 2.85 million units.